He nods and eats from the tin. Anna holds me like she may never let me go. I'm okay with that. Exhaustion is attacking me again.
He doesn't look at me when he talks, "You look beat, kid. Sleep. You have to leave the city in a couple days. Rest up now."
I shake my head and fight my yawn, "No. I'm not tired."
Anna laughs and my eyes close on their own.
When I wake again, the man is standing and looking around a boarded-up concrete corner. Anna is sleeping next to me.
I look at the man, but before I can ask him anything, he puts a finger to his mouth and shakes his head. I blink and feel wetness between my legs again.
I hear the noises from whatever he's clearly watching. I hold my breath and look for weapons and possibilities.
His eyes don’t leave the corner. He watches and I wait. The noises don’t come closer.
After a long time, he turns and smiles. He whispers, "I think we're okay." He looks down at the pile of blankets we're sleeping on. "Did you pee?"
I'm embarrassed and scared. I look down and nod, "I'm sorry. I don’t know what's wrong with me."
He shakes his head, "Catheter and a miscarriage. Not uncommon to have bladder issues after that. It'll just take a couple days to clear up."
I look up. I know him. I swear I do.
He passes me a clean change of clothes and a bottle of water, "Get cleaned up. I'll wait over there."
I take the small bundle and frown, "Why are you helping me?"
He laughs, it's sad and weak. "I know your father, very well."
"You knew him? How? From the health food store?"
His dark eyes glisten. He shakes his head, "Lenny wasn’t your father, Emma. He was your uncle in a way, I suppose." He turns and walks away leaving me with that massive statement.
My mouth is slack. I don’t know what to say or do. I stink of urine and old rusty blood, and Lenny wasn’t my father. Wait did he say miscarriage?
I've had bad days, lots of them. Sometimes it's weeks of them. This is the worst day. I look down at Anna and am happy she is at least sleeping. She missed all those words and the possibilities that lie within them.
I can't stop the tears that well in my eyes. They try to block out the world for me. They try to protect me from seeing the truth. Lenny wasn't my dad? I shake my head, he was my dad. He was.
I stand on my weakened legs in jerky twitches and pull my clothes off. They stick to me and stink.
I use the water and rinse myself, as best as I can.
Worst day ever. At least I have her and soon we'll have Leo.
I dribble the last of the water into my parched chapped lips and walk through the boarded up entrance of the small shanty. He's sitting on a curb around a corner. He really did give me space to change and clean.
I stretch my legs and feel my body coming back around.
"Where are we?" I whisper.
"Parkade. It's how we parked our cars back in the good old days. These buildings were made up to store cars while people were in the cities. This is the top level. I found this little shanty a while back." He looks at me and grins. His dark eyes look tired, "So which part do you want to hear first?"
I shake my head, "Miscarriage?" The father thing is irrelevant. My father is dead. What does it matter who he was? I was never lied to about who my mother was.
He hands me a small pack and points, "We need to get moving. Talk and walk, okay?"
I nod, "Let me get her then." I slip back inside and speak in a hushed tone, "Anna, come out."
She moans, "Do I have to?"
"Yes, hurry." I hear her stir. I leave her and walk back to where he is. The concrete all around us is broken from the bombs and decay. It's like an old building that’s come down on itself. I don’t feel comfortable at all. The light that filters in is muted from the bushes and vines. I glance up at him and try to remember where I know him from, "Who are you?"
"Vincent Fitzgerald. I am a friend of your father's. Your real father. I knew Lenny too. I warned him to get out. I found out about the breeder farms, so I told him to make sure he had you as far away as possible." He speaks as we saunter through the broken and crumbling parkade, "Your miscarriage was actually an abortion. It was intentional. They've never impregnated something like you before. The breeder farm you were at didn’t even know what they had."
I frown, "What do you mean?" Anna's eyes light up. She looks back and forth between us, obvious of the fact she's arrived mid conversation.
He smiles, "You. You're different. Your mother was married to your uncle. Your father drugged your mother and impregnated her with the first of the Gen babies for the Seed Program. You are like the breeder babies. He used his own sperm to make you. She had no idea it was happening."
I don’t understand. I look around uncertain. The cement is crumbling and the old stains of blood and debris are freaking me out. This isn’t exactly the kind of place to stroll and chat. But we do, we round corners and walk over debris. Every corner seems to look the same, broken concrete and crumbled walls with huge windows without glass.
I shake my head, "So my dad, Lenny, was my uncle. My uncle, who I never knew, was my dad, but really I'm a baby from a test tube like the babies at the farms?"
He nods, "That's it."
I glance at Anna, who grins like Jake and nudges me, "That explains some things, huh?"
I scowl and ignore her, "Why did they let me believe Lenny was my dad?"
He shakes his head, "You know how you were never allowed to see your uncle?"
I nod, "He had an affair with my mom. My dad hated him. So did my grandparents."
He shakes his head, "I don’t know the whole story, just that they ran with you. Lenny and you and his parents. Lenny raised you. You guys all lived, sort of off the grid; Michael couldn't find you anywhere. Lenny was good at that."
Closing my eyes in frustration and confusion I wave my hands, "Okay, but the miscarriage? Why did they make me lose the baby, if the breeder farms got me pregnant?" I'm lost. Completely. My nerves are on edge and my body isn’t strong enough for the fighting, we definitely have in store if we're in a city.
He stops and gives me a sad look, "Experiments. The doctors wanted to see what a breeder baby would be like in a Gen baby. The doctor at the camp you were at with Marshall, did a pregnancy test when you got back there. I guess it's a routine thing for girls who leave the breeder camps, not that many do. Marshall told us that the doctor discovered you were with child. Marshall knew you were special, I don't know how. Anyway, he said he couldn't risk you being pregnant around all those people. He didn't know what kind of a child you would have, or pregnancy. Marshall gave you up to our unit when he found out. We had worked with him before he ran. He had stayed in touch with some of us doctors. I would have saved you before but the other doctors were quite excited to see what you could produce. You are a special girl, Emma."
I sigh, sickened by it all. "So I hear. You should hear the nonsense about me being some bloody bird." Stupid phoenix bullshit. Stupid parent bullshit. Stupid miscarriage.
He points to the dark ramp going down another level, "We go this way."
Anna grabs my hand and holds it tight.
I ignore her warmth and stop walking too, "I need my wolf, before we leave the city."
His face crumples, "We can't save him. They're experimenting on the animals to see why some of them are immune."
My hand flies at his throat and holds tight. I steel my eyes, "I need him."
His eyes bulge. He nods and licks his lips, "This is why Marshall called us. You have the tendencies of the Gen babies—uncontrollable rage, impulsive behavior, and unrealistic strength. He was scared to let you stay with the camp people, especially pregnant."
That stings—the name Marshall, and the fact I'm some freak who is a danger to the rebels.
I glare at him and lower my hand, "Then don’t piss me off. Or your fate will be the same as his."
"Em, calm. We'll get Leo." Anna grips my other hand.
He walks across the wide space to the edge of the building and peers through the grass vine hanging over the crumbling concrete. He points to the far side of the city, "It's that way. He was at a separate building than you. Just outside of the city, other side of the infected areas." The view is disturbing. Crumbling buildings, loads of bushy greenery and debris.
I am lost. I am lost in it all. I need the calm of the forest and the fur of my wolf. I sigh and look at him confusedly, "Why are you helping us?"
He looks hurt. The question hurts him, I think. "We had no right to mess with DNA to that extent. The Gen babies overrun the new cities. They're horrid. They can't help themselves. We screwed with something that was already perfect. Darwin and God were both right. Natural selection was a necessity and man was already made the way he should have been."
He looks lost suddenly, "Science and technology was the end of everything. We made it so we all lived unnaturally long but ate chemically-altered foods and got cancer. We lived unnaturally-altered lives and ate up natural resources and polluted everything." He glances at me and sighs, "The year they decided to put the plan into effect to save the planet, they literally had to chose between Man and Earth. A huge group of officials sat in a room for twenty-eight days and argued. Man or Earth. I can't even imagine, having to make a choice like that. But they did. They made the choice and reset everything. I was on board until recently. Now I'm against it all. Yes, we had to reset the earth, there is no doubt. But the Gen babies, the military, the breeder and work farms are wrong. It's not the vision they shared with us originally. They said the six cities would be based on creating people who cared about the planet. We would build from the rubble and create harmony." He looks impassioned and then destroyed all in the same moment, "There is no harmony. They round up the Blacks and Asians and South Americans and send them home. Home? They're Americans for Christ's sake. God help anyone with dark skin, or even a slight slant to their eyes, or any kind of accent." He sighs, "Maybe it's better there though. Maybe the places they go is better than here." He slumps and I feel sick.